My son Sandy has global developmental delay, like Ronans post Living With Global Developmental Delay (GDD) he is 4 years old but his developmental age is around 2-21/2 years old. We knew from birth that something wasn’t quite right with him: he was always small and short for his age, he was very slow to reach his developmental milestones and he had very low muscle tone.
It was quite a long journey getting help for him – our local children’s hospital services initially weren’t really interested in him and it was only when we insisted repeatedly on a referral to Great Ormond Street that things began to move. Sandy received wonderful treatment there for his worst problems (respiratory) and then was seen by members of the OT, Physio and dietary teams and soon referred back to the local counterparts.
Since then, and with the wonderful support of our local children’s center who have hosted numerous Team Around the Child (TAC) meetings, Sandy has enjoyed a year at preschool and is now in his element in the reception class at primary school: a small country school where he is well cared and catered for and where his classmates (and indeed all the other children in the school) are so kind and sweet to him and where he has blossomed in so many different ways.
His communication skills have improved beyond all expectation and he is now also able to communicate his wry and mischievous sense of humour, which keeps others smiling. He has a full statement (a rather gruelling process to achieve as the bureaucratic wheels are not well oiled! But worth it in the end) and so has his own LSA who supports his learning and everyday needs wonderfully.
He can, of course, be very very difficult at times: he has frequent tantrums; he destroys many things as he has no sense of the value people attach to things; he is extremely loud much of the time and he can be very naughty as he is still rather disobedient. He can also hurt others by lashing out, because he has not yet developed a full sense of empathy. He can, at times, be very hard work for all of us in the family.
However, his default is that of a happy, funny, joyful little boy who loves life and relishes (almost!) every moment. I cannot imagine life either without Sandy or with a different, more “normal” Sandy. This is my Sandy, my lovely, affectionate, mischievous, gorgeous little boy. I have no idea what the future will bring, but that really doesn’t bother me – as long as he hangs onto his positive mental attitude to life, that will stand him in great stead. He knows he is loved – he has 2 brothers and 2 sisters who adore him, as well as his beloved Dad whom he calls “Best Friend” – and he is happy in his own skin.
We do often reflect that children like Sandy bring a certain levity and light into life and make you look at things in a new and different way. And we are grateful for this. Certainly in our case GDD is not a negative thing – it is not something we feel bad about or responsible for. But rather it is just a variation on what is generally regarded as the “norm”. And of course, variety can be seen as the spice of life, can’t it?!
I do hope that anyone out there with a child who has GDD and who is despairing might read this and glean something positive from it.